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Mount Kazbek

Mount Kazbek, one of the chief summits of the Caucasus, is located in modern-day Georgia, dominating the town of Kazbegi near the border with North Ossetia. Its altitude is 16,545 feet and it rises on the range which runs north of the main range (main water-parting), and which is pierced by the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. It represents an extinct volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 5800 feet. Owing to the steepness of its slopes, its eight glaciers cover an aggregate surface of not more than 8 square meters, though one of them, Maliev, is 36 meters long. The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak, which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 7530 feet. At its eastern foot runs the Georgian Military Road through the pass of Darial (7805 feet). The summit was first climbed in 1868 by D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker, with a Swiss guide.

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